Hostile Takeover
Introduction

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Takeover" may be posted with questions or
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Introduction

I am very grateful to Angus and Emanuel Sacchi who preserved these files, and sent them
to me when I announced that I had lost them. Since my original introduction seems
permanently lost, I will write another for this reposting of "Hostile Takeover"
(Originally "The Four-Way Door")

Purpose

I posted this story originally as a response to an assertion by Brad Milton (
bradmltn@cougar.multiline.com.au ) that psionicists were "not powerful". Brad
could not concieve of a powerful psionic villain. I offered to tell the story, and Brad
took me up on it, and asked me to tell it from the player's PoV.

TSR's spectacular Compete Book of Villains (which I cannot
recommend too much) presents another psychoporter villain (even set in Dark Sun, believe
it or not) that DMs really should look at, but the psychoporter villain in this adventure
uses her abilities and antagonizes the party through very different, more large-scale
means.

Another PC is relevant to the adventure, although he does not participate in the Fort
Ianto portion: Corvin, a 8th-level fighter/psionicist.

For background, let me sum up two previous adventures that tie into this one. Both come
from David Cook's Road to Urik

1. The PCs were asked to "encourage" a noble family to send troops to support
the war with Urik. They chose a blackmail tack which proved quite effective (though it
made them a powerful enemy); they bribed one of the Noble's aides to tell them the
incriminating information about the Noble Tyrthiani. All of the above was Dave Cook's
idea. The incriminating evidence that I developed was that Tyrthani had hired starving
peasants to till his fields, offering them good wages, and then turned around and sold
fifty of these volunteers into slavery; to a Vordon Caravan headed to Gulg. The PCs had
kept this a secret since Tyrthiani had ceded to their demands.

2. The PCs were asked to gather false evidence and frame someone for Kalak's murder.
One of the PC's, a Mul F/Psi who had fought in the arena and served in Tyr's guard, was
mad the King's official "messenger" in this task. This mini-adventure gets only
one page in _the Road to Urik_, but I find it completely brilliant (Go, Dave C!). Dave
Cook set this up as an opportunity for the PCs to collect bribes from factions aware of
the official charade and not wanting to be blamed. Humorously, the messenger refused every
single bribe that he was offered (!!!), then told the bribing party that they were not
under suspicion at the moment, but that DOTE MAL PAYNE, (Kalak's disappeared former Chief
Necromancer) was the chief suspect. The messenger refused the bribes but asked each of the
potential bribers to help him gather "evidence" to implicate DMP. Of course, his
refusing the bribes alarmed the bribers, and some of them actually did really help
fabricate a lot of the PCs evidence.

I won't go into the details, but the PCs put together such an excellent case that they
convinced half the city, and even bewildered some of the people that knew that the
investigation was a sham. Corvin's (the chosen PC messenger) singular refusal to take
bribes strongly added to the party's mystique and credibility.

Major NPC KEY (spoiler)

Names are hard to follow, so I capitalize names or references to major NPCs:

IANTO = head of merchant house Ianto, which owns a fort just in the
shadow of the mountains below the Tyrian mines.

BERN = son of Ianto, who offers to bring the PCs into fort Ianto via
his dream travel wild talent.

TWILE, a street urchin associated with Tyr's Veiled Alliance (see VA
supplement.) An obvious tribute to Les Miserables' Gavroche,
Twile does not accompany the PCs in the adventure.

DMP = Dote Mal Payne, Kalak's former necromancer (see City State of Tyr)

A Word on Presentation

Some of you may dislike my choice of format. I will add notes to the DM as I go, but I
will not format this as an adventure, since to me it's only worth that effort if I can
submit it to TSR, and I have learned from bad experience that the Dungeon Staff will not
even look at my work. (If any TSR staff read this, then correct me if I am wrong. If I
think I have a chance of publication in Dungeon, I will gladly rewrite it in any format
that the editors wish.)